The New Face of Inner Beauty

You are so beautiful on the inside, people have always said to me. As women, how many times have you been told this, only to blush in disagreement or shrug it off because it didn’t seem like it was a big deal? We live in a society that values physical, exterior beauty so much more than what is on the inside, but perhaps this is changing slowly in our media landscape as platforms like Facebook impulse us to share and favor stories where inner beauty, not outer beauty, is where the real depth, meaning and richness live.

For so many years I’ve shrugged off that comment, firstly because I didn’t believe it and secondly because I didn’t value inner beauty. As a girl growing up, I was taught that looks were absolutely everything and not only physical looks, but emotional looks as well. Not only did I have to appear perfect with my clothing, skin, hair and makeup, I also had to hide emotions that were deemed ugly — emotions like anger, sadness, disappointment or feelings of injustice. Rather than being real, I had to be a façade, making sure I would embarrass no one by being who I really was.

As I woke up this morning, I quickly got to thinking, what am I here to teach exactly? Although the creation of imaginative and gorgeous furniture is my biggest passion, I’m not exactly here to teach external beauty. While I love to offer tips on skincare and healing foods, it’s not really what my soul longs to bring forth. If it’s not that, then is it the topics of emotional pain or creativity or courage? Then it hit me all of a sudden in a splendid a–ha moment: I am here to teach inner beauty — seeing the meaning in everything, bringing metaphor into the mundane. Furniture is a physical object for sure, but in my creation of it, I try to give it depth, character and inner beauty. You would sense it because they are all created with that spirit and energy intentionally.

Inner beauty, I am certain, is what will change the direction of our world for the better. When we cultivate what’s already beautiful about us on the inside and express it freely, and allowing our inner beauty to take the lead and take the direction — well, how peaceful it will be in our environment and world if we can train ourselves to see what’s precious and worth celebrating about each other, rather than what is unacceptable or different?

All these years as I unfolded my interior makeup, I believed I was an ugly person — not enough, not beautiful, not valuable. If I were to wear the wrong clothes or match the “wrong” piece of jewelry or if I didn’t tweeze my eyebrows, well, heaven forbid, bring out the worthiness judge for an automatic sentencing. This is exactly what I don’t want for little girls. To a large extent, I don’t agree with things like beauty pageants either, because we’re teaching girls that there is a measure to worth and ranking based on how you look on the outside. That is hardly an encouraging message especially when girls are brilliant and have so much more to offer. Plus, their waist line belongs to them, not to our society and I wholeheartedly believe that no one gets to judge their bodies as if they were inanimate sculptures. Girls have feelings—we all do and plus, their bodies belong to them, not to us.

Inner beauty is what heals all of us on the inside and gives us peace that says whatever we look like, it is okay and it is also beautiful. Outside looks never solved any world problems or at least to my knowledge, made anyone deeply happy, but inner beauty does. It’s the gateway to our connection with our higher selves, to spirituality, to whatever faith we believe in, to whatever higher power we align ourselves with.

So then it’s been decided and also quite obvious to me by now, that the brand of Ana Coeur is guided by the grace of inner beauty in everything we do and in everything I write from here on out.